Power augmentation of Darrieus wind turbine blades using trapped vortex cavity

Enhancing the performance of Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) is the key to boost their possible commercialisation in the yet highly competitive wind energy market. This study evaluates an active boundary layer control technique to increase the aerodynamic efficiency of Darrieus VAWTs. A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of wind engineering and industrial aerodynamics 2022-04, Vol.223, p.104949, Article 104949
Main Authors: Ibrahim, Ahmed A., Elbaz, Ahmed M.R., Melani, Pier Francesco, Mohamed, Omar S., Bianchini, Alessandro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cavity
CFD
Darrieus
NACA0021
Separation control
Trapped vortex
VAWT
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Summary:Enhancing the performance of Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) is the key to boost their possible commercialisation in the yet highly competitive wind energy market. This study evaluates an active boundary layer control technique to increase the aerodynamic efficiency of Darrieus VAWTs. A cavity is created on the airfoil's suction side, where suction is applied to create a trapped vortex. High-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are used after validation against experimental results. The effect of suction momentum ratio Cμ on the performance of the turbine is investigated. The turbine with suction cavity airfoils (SC) shows a higher power coefficient than the one with baseline airfoil (BL) blades, especially at low tip-speed ratios. For the selected test case, the net maximum predicted power coefficient is 0.435 for the SC turbine at TSR = 2.3, 0.375 for the baseline at TSR = 2.6. At the lower tip-speed ratios, i.e. TSR = 2, the power coefficient of the SC turbine is almost double that of the BL turbine. The feasibility of the active control technique is finally discussed, demonstrating its potential as an effective solution for the performance augmentation of the Darrieus turbine. •Increase of Darrieus aerodynamic efficiency through active boundary layer control.•Use of trapped vortex cavity with momentum suction.•Great improvement of turbine performance (+28% for the selected case study).•Ability of controlling the BL along the suction side of the blade at high AoA.•Feasibility proven by a dedicated analysis.
ISSN:0167-6105
1872-8197
DOI:10.1016/j.jweia.2022.104949